HAS THE FOOD AND AGRICULTURE SECTOR PLAYED ITS INTENDED ROLE IN SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF SRI LANKA? AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

Abstract

This study examines the economic research problem of whether the food and agriculture sector of Sri Lanka has played its intended role in the process of socio-economic development. The Myint Hypothesis was used to develop the analytical framework, which states that, as a country passes through the process of structural transformation (i.e. the agricultural share decreases overtime, while the Gross Domestic Production increases), its food and agriculture sector should “give a hand” for socio-economic development. by: (1) increasing the supply of food available for domestic consumption (food security); (2) releasing the agricultural labor force for specialized work in other sectors, including the manufacturing and services (intersectoral labor mobility); (3) increasing the supply of domestic savings from agriculture sector (capital formation), and (4) increasing the foreign exchange earnings through agricultural exports (agricultural trade). The outcome of analysis, which employed Distributed Lag Models in various functional forms for the data covering the period of 1970 to 2010, shows that the performance of the agriculture sector was fairly satisfactory to upkeep the levels of household food security, capital formation and foreign exchange earnings. It justifies, overall, respective government’s efforts to safeguard agriculture sector by direct interventions, as it acts as the mainstay of livelihood for vast majority of people and has now come up to a situation where it can stand right with a “little help” extended by means of an incentive-based regulatory and facilitative policy framework